Chapter 40
Sneaking out of the dormitory wasn’t that hard. After packing up what they needed for this trip, Taylor used her bugs to keep track of everyone, making it easy to avoid being spotted. The professors were too busy preparing to send the students home to pay attention.
Taylor guided Luna to avoid tired prefects, gossipy ghosts and even more obsessed caretakers, until they left the castle through one of the side entrances, closer to the broom closet.
The air there was cold and cutting.
“What do we need to save Ginny?” Luna asked, pulling the winter robes closer.
“A bigger Horror,” Taylor said.
Somewhere else inside the castle, Taylor had Dee and Dum working to gather the things she would need.
Luna opened the closet door and inspected each broom in turn, often whispering to them. Once she was done, she picked one seemingly at random. She threw her leg over it, and looked at Taylor, who, for her part, climbed behind her friend and hugged her tightly.
“The forest,” Taylor said into Luna’s hair. “The spiders.”
Luna glanced back, her serious eyes meeting Taylor’s. She nodded and took off soon after, flying low over the top of the trees. The snow had started to melt, but many of the trees were still covered in white and fluff.
Reaching the hollow by broom didn’t take long. Luna dipped into the open area and Taylor alighted in the centre of the hollow yelling for the big spider.
“Aragog! Aragog!”
Arabelle scurried from under Luna’s robes to join the gathering tide of giant spiders. The clicking and chittering was almost deafening.
Aragog emerged from his nest ponderously, each giant limb stabbing into the earth.
“Why have you returned, queen? You are not welcome here.”
“I need your help. The Horror took my friend. We need to save her.”
“Your friend is already dead. There's nothing to save.”
“No!” Taylor snarled out. “She's not!”
“I care not for men. Why should I help you?”
“Hagrid has been taken to Azkaban,” Luna said, walking beside Taylor. “If not for our friend, help us for Hagrid. With your help, we can prove he’s innocent.”
Aragog’s giant head turned to face Luna. “Princess.”
Luna waved cheerfully. “Hullo, Aragog.”
“Will you help?” Taylor asked.
“No,” Aragog said.
A pit of ice formed inside Taylor’s tummy. Her power unfolded, covering the entire hollow and all nine hundred, seventy three giant spiders, Aragog included. All around her, every spider stilled. The hollow became as quiet as a grave.
It would have been so easy.
Taylor ground her teeth. She pulled her power back, turned around towards her friend and tugged at Luna’s robes. “Let's go save our friend. We don’t need him.”
Without Aragog’s help, things would be harder, but Taylor was sure she could deal with the Horror, even if it would still be painful.
Luna waved goodbye to the gathered spiders. She threw her leg over the broom and Taylor climbed behind her.
“I’ll help,” Aragog said before they could take off.
Taylor turned back to the giant spider’s ugly face. “What?”
“Not for your friend, but for Hagrid.”
“Why the change of heart?” Taylor didn’t want to admit how relieved she felt.
“I had to know what type of Queen you were.”
Taylor gaped at the spider. “What?”
Aragog ignored Taylor. He turned to face the largest cluster of spiders.
“My sons and daughters.” Aragog’s voice echoed through the entire hollow. “Tonight, our ancient enemy will be no more.”
The spiders clicked and chittered.
“Keep away from men. Do not attack the castle, and respect your new Queen.”
Luna walked closer, pulling out the failed potion that Taylor had given her before they left the castle. “This is a shrinking solution. It is not permanent.”
“Do it.”
Luna removed the stopper and tipped the entire thing over Aragog’s head. The house sized spider shrunk until he was small enough to fit inside Luna’s pocket.
“Let's go!” Taylor said, knowing now that they were on the clock. They had to reach the Chamber before the potion effect wore off.
Luna grabbed the broom and Taylor climbed behind her. Before they took off, a clicking voice they hadn’t heard before stopped them.
“Motherr,” the voice cried out, and Arabelle came skittering from the mass of spiders.
“What?” Taylor blurted for the third time, extending her hand for Arabelle to climb on.
“Motherr,” the spider clicked again. Then Arabelle jumped onto Luna’s head. “Mum.”
Luna grabbed Arabelle and hugged her. “Aren’t you a cute little baby!”
As much as Taylor wanted to know what was going on in Arabelle’s head, they didn’t have the time. “Go!” she called out to Luna, who hid Arabelle under her robes and took off flying towards the castle.
Once the castle was in range, Taylor started on the second part of her plan. The pixies had borrowed ink pots from Lockhart’s now-abandoned office and were waiting for new instructions. She directed them where to go, while gathering all the spiders (specially jumping spiders) and mosquitoes she could find.
Spiders webbed four flyers together, while others dipped legs into ink and blotted the bugs’ eyes. She then used more silk to tie one jumping spider beneath each group of four flyers, with the spider looking down instead of forward. That would limit their field of view, and by flying close to the ground, Taylor wouldn’t risk looking into the Horror’s eyes.
By the time they arrived near Myrtle’s corridor, Taylor had most of her army prepared.
Instead of heading toward the bathroom, Taylor led Luna one floor down, to an unused classroom where the wall hid the pipe.
Taylor drew her wand and turned to Luna. “You should—”
“I’m not letting you go alone.”
Taylor studied Luna’s determined eyes. She hugged her friend, and when she pulled back, she laced her fingers through Luna’s.
“The potion is wearing off,” Luna said, looking at the pocket where Aragog had hidden. It had started to bulge.
“Keep your eyes closed at all times, and don’t let go,” Taylor said, facing the wall. She pointed her wand, preparing a spell.
Taylor hadn’t used this spell yet outside training with Luna, but it was the only way she could think to get to the Chamber, since she didn’t know how to speak snake.
“Reducto.”
There was a flash of blue light and part of the wall vanished, dissolving into dust and leaving a large metal pipe exposed.
“Reducto,” Taylor called out once more. Metal shrieked as it tore open, leaving a hole big enough in the pipe for them to crawl through.
Which they did.
Taylor sent her drones in first and followed with her eyes closed, Luna’s hand still in hers. Behind them came the rest of her swarm, blotting out the classroom and filling the pipe.
Taylor felt something strange popping up near the classroom. It was the same feeling she often got when asking the castle for things. It was there for just a brief moment, before disappearing in a panicked puff.
It was yet another mystery to investigate once they rescued Ginny.
The pipe led down and down. It was like rushing a slimy underground slide. There were more pipes branching off the main one, but none large enough for a person to fit through. It twisted and curved, leading steeply downwards. The bugs following in their wake picked up many different scents and textures. Part of the pipe had scratches that took Taylor a moment to realise were scale marks. The whole pipe reeked of something acrid and dangerous that made her heart hammer against her ribs. Even the ordinary jumping spiders tied up in their spy-drone formation wanted to flee.
The school and all the bugs still nested inside the castle soon disappeared from Taylor’s range.
Just as she began to worry she’d splatter at the bottom, and sent her pixies beneath them to slow their descent, the pipe evened out, and she shot out of the end with a wet thud, landing on the damp floor of a dark stone tunnel large enough to stand in.
Luna followed, landing on top of Taylor.
“Ow,” Taylor said, getting up and helping her friend stand.
Aragog, who had grown so much that he barely fit inside the pocket, scurried away, climbing a nearby wall. Taylor had to gently nudge the spider, because his instincts, even though he was resolved to fight the Horror, were to flee.
Her mass of bugs arrived soon after, like a tide of skittering legs and pincers and wings being vomited out of the pipe.
“Don’t open your eyes,” Taylor said, spreading her bugs out to explore the place where they had landed.
It was a tunnel large enough for a giant serpent to move through. Her bugs found many small bones littering the floor. Not far ahead, there was something large lying across the tunnel. It wasn’t only one thing. Deeper into the tunnel, in branch paths that looked more like holes in the wall, her bugs found more of the same.
They were shed snakeskins, which glowed a vivid, poisonous green even through the spiders’ eyes in the quiet darkness. The Horror that shed them must have been at least twenty feet long.
Aragog clicked, pacing around on the wall, but he didn’t try to flee.
“I found shed skin,” Taylor whispered, squeezing Luna’s hand.
“Can we take some? I think Daddy would like a piece,” Luna whispered back.
Taylor wanted to be mad at her friend, but ended up grinning in the darkness.
“When we leave this place with Ginny, let’s take some as souvenirs.”
The path led forward, turning and turning. After another bend, there was a solid wall on which two entwined serpents were carved out of metal, their eyes set with great, glinting emeralds.
Aragog crawled up toward the ceiling. He moved in the darkness above, out of sight and silent as the grave. The potion had worn off enough that he was as big as a large dog.
The stone wall blocking their path was more resilient than the classroom wall had been. It seemed protected by magic, because no matter how many Reductos Taylor blasted at it, the stone and snakes didn’t budge. She was about to start blasting the surrounding walls, when the metal serpents slid apart, revealing the passage on the other side.
Luna squeezed her hand, and together they walked through the open passage.
Taylor kept all her bugs outside the Chamber, having only her prepared drones fly inside. Aragog crawled silently on the ceiling above while surrounded by her pixies and guided by Taylor through her bugs.
Those were the only ones she was willing to risk. Aragog was blind and immune to the Horror’s gaze, and the blue menaces could keep their eyes closed and avoid death by Horror.
The Chamber beyond was a very long, dimly lit chamber. The eerie glow could be seen even through Taylor’s closed eyes.
There were towering pillars decorated with carved serpents that rose to support the ceiling hidden in the darkness above. The ceiling, almost a hundred feet up, was cracked and old, full of dust but not a web in sight. It was a perfect place for a house-sized spider to hide.
At the end of the Chamber, past the last pair of the pillars, was a statue standing against the back wall as tall as the Chamber itself. It was ancient and its proportions made Taylor think more of a monkey than a man. It had a long thin beard that went down to where two enormous stone feet stood on the smooth Chamber floor.
And between the feet, face down, was Ginny.
Her friend lay on the damp ground, the diary and cloak by her side. She wasn't moving. She was barely breathing.
“Ginny!” Taylor cried out.
Luna squeezed her hand. They both ran, forgetting to keep their eyes closed.
“Ginny,” Taylor said again, once she reached the unconscious girl. She shook the redhead. “Wake up. Please.”
“She won't wake up.”
The new voice sounded close. Worse yet, her bugs hadn’t sensed anyone there. Taylor whirled, wand pointed where the voice had come from. A twinkling, shimmering panel of energy formed between them and the newcomer.
Her Protego had come out stronger than she’d been expecting. Faster too. Taylor often had trouble using it without yelling out the incantation name.
The newcomer was a boy, sixteen or seventeen, dressed in Slytherin colours. He had a prefect badge pinned to his robes. He held a familiar wand in his hand.
“Who are you?” Luna asked.
“What did you do to Ginny?” Taylor demanded.
“I’m Tom Riddle.”
Taylor aimed her wand at his face. “No, you’re not.”
“Is that so?”
“Tom Riddle was a student here half a century ago. You’re not that old.”
“I’m a memory. Preserved in a diary for fifty years.”
“What did you do to Ginny?” Luna insisted.
“Poor Ginny poured her soul out to me. All her deepest fears.
“Dear Tom, my brothers won’t leave me alone. They keep teasing me about Harry now that I’m at Hogwarts. Dear Tom, I hate this. Everyone else has nice, new clothes, but I have to come to school with second-hand robes and old, dusty books. Dear Tom, I think Harry doesn’t like me. He’s great, famous, and a hero. How could he ever like someone like me?”
“Stop it!” Taylor brandished her wand, but Tom seemed unconcerned.
“I grew powerful enough that I wasn’t just a memory anymore.”
In that moment, the dreams finally made sense.
“Expelliarmus!” Taylor yelled. A ray of red light shot from her wand, striking at Tom Riddle. Ginny's wand flew from the boy’s hand, clattering in the darkness behind him.
“You are the Heir. You’ve been possessing Ginny to attack the school.”
“Very smart,” Tom mocked. “It was very boring, having to listen to the silly little troubles of an eleven-year-old girl,” he went on. “But I was patient. I wrote back, I was sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me.”
“No…” Luna whispered from somewhere behind Taylor.
Taylor kept glaring at the maybe-ghost.
“You two almost ruined my plans.
“Dear Tom, I made two new friends today. I already knew Luna, but we weren’t friends before, and Taylor is always with Luna. They are so strange, but I like them. Dear Tom, we had a tea party today. What witch even has tea parties these days? Tom, Taylor is so silly. It's like she never played Quidditch before. She gets so animated talking about it.”
Tom walked around the trio, watching them with red-flecked eyes, like he was studying a fascinating new bug.
“She stopped pouring her heart and soul into the diary. Some days, she didn't even write at all. I lost most of the influence I had over her. But thankfully, Harry, Ronald and the twins, insensitive little boys that they are, made sure to ignore and tease poor little Ginny during the holidays. Without her new friends to keep her company, she came back to me.”
“Diffindo!” Taylor cried out. Pink light shot out of her wand, splashing harmlessly against the maybe-ghost.
“What a mean little creature you are. Are you sure you shouldn’t be in Slytherin? You’d fit right in.”
“Shut up!” Taylor snapped, her mind racing.
Something was very wrong here. Tom was… monologuing. Was he such a maniac that he wanted to gloat to two girls he had never met before? Or was he trying to buy time for something? Where was the Horror?
“Imagine my surprise, when I finally managed to pour enough of myself back into Ginny and go out to take care of two little pests interfering with my plans.” His face twisted into a scowl. “I met the famous Harry Potter and what a disappointment he was. I didn’t even had to do anything, and he was petrified by the Slytherin serpent.”
There was a distinct note in Tom’s voice that Taylor didn’t miss. Luna didn’t either.
“You talk like Harry is important to you.”
“How could such a powerless boy defeat the greatest wizard of all time?”
That threw a wrench into Taylor’s thoughts. When had Harry ever fought Dumbledore?
“Harry never defeated Dumbledore,” Luna said, echoing Taylor's thoughts.
“Stupid little thing. Lord Voldemort is the greatest wizard that ever lived.”
Taylor blinked. Wasn’t that the evil wizard who Harry often mentioned to his friends?
“Who?” she asked, knowing it would provoke Tom. Something had to change here. Spells weren’t working against him, and there had been no sign of the Horror yet.
Tom’s face turned uglier, and the red glint in his eyes stronger.
“Lord Voldemort. The greatest wizard who ever lived. He was poised to take over the whole wizarding world, until Harry happened.”
“Why do you care?” Taylor asked. “This Voldymorte was defeated a decade ago. He’s old news.”
Tom hissed like a snake. “I am Lord Voldemort!”
The words hung in the air while Tom Riddle glared at Taylor.
“But enough. It was a mistake to think I’d find enjoyable conversation with a filthy mudblood and her loony friend.”
Taylor tensed, waiting for an attack. It never came. What came next was a hiss she’d heard once before.
Taylor didn’t need to know what the words were to know their intent. Even more so when, from behind the huge stone statue, the giant serpent answered.
“Close your eyes!” Taylor cried out, doing just that.
“It won’t save you, stupid little girl.”